The first and foremost thing to discuss is the silver metallic figure in the set photos, and whether or not it is in fact Ultron (James Spader) or some other character entirely. We know that there is going to be another major robotic character in the film – The Vision (Paul Bettany) – and from the very first teaser trailer there have been strong hints that Ultron (and subsequently Vision) could be a character that evolves out of one of Tony Stark’s Iron Man armor designs. The figure in the set photos who is wearing the bulky silver garb definitely looks to be garbed in something like one of the plastic armor suits they use on RDJ when filming Iron Man sequences.

Keeping all things open to possibility, it’s easy to contend that the figure in the photos could be new Iron Man or War Machine armors, The Vision, or some nameless lieutenant-bot – but the smart money would probably be on it being Ultron. It just looks like something akin to the classic comic book version of the Ultron (balanced with the Iron Man movie designs, of course); the way the crew are walking the actor in the silver armor to the set under a literal cloak of secrecy says a lot; and finally, the figure looks like something that could be modeled off of James Spader, whose physical appearance will be incorporated into the character design.

The next bit of focus will be the set photos as a whole, which seem to depict a battle scene between an Avengers squad, Ultron and his minions, which are played by the guys in full mo-cap suits. Much like with the first film, a compelling villain is great, but a team like the Avengers need big numbers of faceless goons to beat on. So Loki had his mo-cap suit Chitari henchman, and now Ultron has his mo-cap suit robotic soldiers. Makes sense for an A.I. bent on world control to have foot soldiers… multi-tasking and all that.

We already identified such henchman in the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver concept art that was recently released to the public (see above) – but is that silver-haired character sitting on his rump in the set photos really star Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Quicksilver? If so, this could perhaps be the exact sequence the concept art was depicting.

Finally: There’s Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) on the set! Hope he brought enough arrows to take down an advanced army of robots! If not, he could be pretty screwed come battle time…

UPDATE: We now have a look at Hakwkeye and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) in battle – along with CONFIRMATION of the Ultron design and Quicksilver silver hair. CLICK ANY OF THE PHOTOS FOR DETAILS.